


Deep Magic

by Nillegible



Series: Naruto Magic Week Fills [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Clamp AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 06:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19435474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nillegible/pseuds/Nillegible
Summary: The Dimensional Witch, Mito, collects an odd assortment of travelers in her shop.





	Deep Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hiruma_Musouka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiruma_Musouka/gifts).



> This fic (and all the rest I've written and may one day post in this AU) is for Hiruma_Musouka, the author who writes the most gorgeous TobiMada fic on all AO3. When I asked ages ago they said they quite like Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and that sort of dimension travel. I've been sitting on this for ages, but I'm using Naruto Magic Week as a reason to finally post it. I hope they like it if they do see it.
> 
> And I hope everyone else enjoys the AU, I had fun writing it!

There’s a soft rustling of leaves underfoot as he hurries between shadows, a clearer sign than any yet that his strength has begun to falter. To catch his breath he freezes, crouched low against the roots of a vast tree, the shadows deep enough that his fingertips - pressed against the rough bark as they grip a kunai with familiar looseness - are only visible because they’re up near his face, close enough for his breath to warm the backs of curled fingers and dark steel.

There is no sound of pursuit (hasn’t been for nearly three days now) but that doesn’t mean he’s safe yet. For the first time in his life, Orochimaru is the hunted instead of the hunter. The part suits him ill. The anger curled up inside him, hot and dark, makes him want to seek out his pursuers and tear them limb from limb, and his exhaustion is lowering his control over the spiraling anger.

Perhaps, were it anyone but Jiraiya chasing him, he would not be cowering here, afraid to meet them head-on, stripped and broken as he is. But Jiraiya is a strong opponent who knows him well, and without a doubt, his menace of a blond student is with him. And from Namikaze, at least, Orochimaru need not fear mercy.

He knows he must be close. There’s no reason that Jiraiya or Namikaze could have guessed where he is heading, but caution has always served him well and he carefully selects his path now. The dangerous twilight dims into a safer darkness, and Orochimaru walks quietly on. He has to find sanctuary tonight, he has run out of backup plans.

Nearly an hour later, he gets the first faint smell of incense, and he smiles to himself in the darkness.

He’s found the Witch.

Or, the easiest way to get to her, at least. One trans-dimensional teleportation ritual, heavily modified for use in emergency circumstances, and Orochimaru lands in front of a simple looking shopfront swaying on his feet.

“We’re not closing up shop tonight,” she tells Kagami when he’s done washing up after dinner and looks ready to leave. The boy gives her a strange look, but she doesn’t elaborate, just adds, “You can leave in the morning.”

“Mito, I have class tomorrow!”

She pays him no mind though, lighting her pipe and leaning back in her couch. She’s never had Hashirama’s foresight but she can still sense that the magic of her shop feels weighted today. Significant. Mito has learned to interpret that intuitively, if not logically.

When her storefront bell jangles hours after a decent closing time, Mito sends Kagami to welcome the new client. The moment he crosses the threshold the magic _shivers_.

“Welcome to the shop, sir! You’ve come at an awkward time but I suppose you need assistance. What can we do for you today?” says her assistant, cheerful as ever.

“Who are you?” says the unfamiliar voice.

“Me? I’m Kaga-hey! Names have power, I’m not supposed to just tell anyone who asks, you know! Who’re you?”

“My name is Orochimaru. And you are clearly not the person I’m here to see,” says the stranger firmly.

“Well I work here and so you need to tell me what you want,” says Kagami. “And you need to want _something_ because otherwise, you couldn’t have gotten here.” He looks about to elaborate further, but she stops him.

“Hush, child,” she says stepping into the front. She takes a long look at the man before her assistant, tall, slender, with a wealth of long dark hair. He looks dusty and tired, like he’s been running, and yet fierce, like he’s ready to battle regardless of his state. “You were looking for me?”

“Yes,” he says. He seems to be scrutinizing her as thoroughly as she had him.

“It’s quite rare for me to have a client on purpose. Usually they just… wander in.” To prove her point the bell chimes again, the door thrown open by a listing figure.

She says, “Kagami, help him inside,” and her assistant scrambles to obey, then yelps. “Oh god, you’re bleeding! Mito, he’s bleeding, he’s been stabbed,” the man sways forward and Kagami grabs his arm before he can collapse. He slips under the stranger’s shoulder, clearly missing the tanto in his hand, and squeaks when the tanto bounces in front of his face in a boneless grip. “Oh god, bloody knife. Really. Did you kill someone?” Bright red eyes turn to Mito in a terrified plea and she quickly takes some of the stranger’s weight and takes the wet tanto from red-stained fingers.

They maneuver him to a plush chair and she snaps her fingers at the first stranger. “You, wizard. Heal him.”

“That’s not why I’m here, I-”

“If you’re here for my services, you should know that I prefer payment up front.”

A quick look at Kagami’s bulging eyes would have outed that as a bald-faced lie, but the wizard just rolls up his sleeves and kneels beside the injured man. He whispers an incantation, tracing out characters in the air, and then places his hands on the injury. He begins to chant, softly, barely audible but with a pleasant, hypnotic sound, and there’s a flash of light from his hands while the vivid purple markings on the wizard’s face begin to glow. In less than a minute, he stops chanting and rocks back on his heels.

“I have not even told you what I’m here for, what if you have overcharged?” he asks.

Mito meets the yellow eyes, the marks still faintly glowing on his face. “You were fleeing from someone more powerful than you. You have currently only paid the price for my sanctuary, Orochimaru.” The wizard’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t complain. She rises and gestures to another chair, which he gracefully settles into.

“Kagami, if you would bring our guests refreshments.” Her assistant gives the unconscious ninja a look but quickly hurries around the counter and towards the back. “As I said before. It is rare for someone to seek me out.”

“They say that you can grant wishes,” he says.

“If you can afford my prices, I can grant you anything you desire. Of course, I will take something of equal value,” not that most really understood what that meant. She leans forward, “So…shall I grant you your wish?”

The unconscious ninja groans then, blinks, and sits up at full alertness. He’s out of his chair and several steps away the next moment. “What is going on, here?” The man has sharp grey eyes, and she sees them sweep over the room, careful to take in every detail.

“Welcome to my shop,” she says, used to the disbelief of most of her customers. “I am Mito, and I grant wishes to those who can pay the price.”

Sharp eyes glance at her, then continue the thorough cataloging of the room. Kagami, walking back out with a tray, squeaks and freezes behind the counter but barely gets a second glance. Finally, he meets her eyes again. “I am afraid I don’t quite remember. Did I wish to be healed? What do I owe you?”

Mito smiles. He’s suspicious, which would serve him well for what she intended to do with him.

“Please, have a seat. You haven’t made your wish yet. You haven’t even told us your _name._ ”

“Hatake Sakumo,” says the man, inclining his head regally. “Orochimaru,” offers the wizard, gazing keenly at the newcomer, who approaches cautiously and takes a seat with them. Sakumo’s eyebrows furrow as he stares at the wizard for a few moments longer. “You are a necromancer. Was I killed?”

“I am not a _necromancer,_ ” says Orochimaru, coldly. “I am a High Mage of my realm, capable of most of the Greater Arts, including necromancy. I merely healed you of the stab wound that you entered this establishment with.” The two men continue to stare at each other, and Mito is about to intercede (it wouldn’t do for the men to antagonize each other so soon), when Sakumo clasps his hands together before him and inclines his head deeply. “You have my gratitude.”

Strangely, the wizard looks away at that. “It was my required payment to the Witch,” he admits.

“Even so,” says Sakumo gravely, then turns to her. “What payment do I owe you, for this. And…once paid, am I free to return to my men?”

Mito shakes her head, “I am afraid it doesn’t quite work like that. You could wish to return to your men…but you could not afford it.”

He raises an eyebrow, “The cost of just letting me back out of those doors?”

“The price would be the lives of six-hundred of your men.”

Sakumo stills, and for a man without magic he suddenly seems the most dangerous in this room. “And why would the price be set so high?”

“Your life, and the health you have regained here, mean little enough on my premises. But if I allowed you to return to your people you would turn the tide of the battle they are currently fighting. The blow to your enemies would be so decisive that they will sue for peace rather than face your men in battle again. The war precipitating between your countries would be averted with no further loss of life,” she says.

“And is that not a worthy goal?” he asks, eyes sharp. If he means to appeal for compassion, she cannot help him. Her powers are _exacting_ when it comes to payment.

“If you would be willing to send me six hundred shinobi, to be slaughtered during peacetime, with no honour for their deaths…” she trails off but holds his gaze. “I am bound to grant the wishes asked of me as long as the price is paid, but I would beg you to choose a different wish, should you try. You would save nothing worth saving by returning to your home using my power.”

She can see the exact moment that Sakumo believes her because his will visibly crumbles. He leans back heavily in his chair, without any of the care he had shown for his surroundings since he woke up. Each time that Mito thinks that she has become inured against this disappointment that she has accepted the limitations of her power she must relive the consequences. What use is power that cannot give without taking so much?

“You can make your wish, my dear. I’m afraid I’m all out of wishes,” says Sakumo.

Kagami finally creeps closer, setting down the refreshments before retreating once again behind the counter. Neither man looks at the food presented.

“My wish would be to never return to my home-world again,” Orochimaru says. “I suppose I too cannot afford to have that granted?”

“The price would be your life, here and now,” says Mito bluntly. Only death would keep the wizard from his fate. She can already see it reaching out for him, heavy tethers hooked into his soul, tugging him back. Something that Sakumo, for all that he was desperate to return to his life, was free of.

“I was afraid that would be the case,” he says quietly. He glances up at Sakumo and offers him a half-smile. “So you have been left for dead, and despite my best efforts, I _must_ die. Perhaps I _should_ have chosen a sole focus on the necromantic arts,” he says, tone almost conversational. Orochimaru reaches down to pour tea for himself. “I assume that the partaking of your food does not bind me further?”

“This isn’t the _fairy realm_ , and I make the best tea and cookies,” Kagami says, the insult to his culinary skills lending him some nerve.

It brings Sakumo’s attention to the boy and she watches as he shrinks back a step under the man’s focused grey eyes. “Is that what will happen to us? We have wishes we cannot afford to pay for so we stay here indefinitely?”

“No,” she says. “No one living can stay here long. Kagami works for me to pay off his wish, but it is temporary and he has school in the morning. You may go to bed, child. Thank you for staying late today.”

“Uh, no problem! I’ll. Yeah, good night Mito. Sirs,” and he disappears back inside.

“Good night,” Sakumo echoes, a moment too late. There’s a heavy silence over the table for a long moment. “You have not explained what will happen to us.”

Mito stirs the tea she’s holding. “You cannot go home but you are free to go elsewhere. And Orochimaru must return to Konoha. Yet he may…delay. All you need is a reason.”

“If you are waiting for something, I would prefer to be given warning,” says Orochimaru, and he glances back at the door. While the wizard is obviously older than he appears, he is still so _young_ , she thinks.

“Do you believe in coincidences, Orochimaru?” Mito asks.

“Yes.” She smiles at that, and she sees him stiffen.

“You’ll stop, someday,” says Mito, and puts her cup down. There’s a flash of violet light to her left, a whirling, spinning mass of air that blows through her store, (Kagami will yell at her when she makes him clean it up, tomorrow) and then two small figures materialize in the center of the whirlwind. The moment that the figures hit the ground, the wind stills, leaving the wrecked storefront eerily still except for the two small figures.

One of them, red hair wind-tangled is on his knees, arms around the other unconscious young man. She is certain he’s dead for a moment, then sees the faint signs of breathing. The red-head looks up, “Are you the Dimensional witch?”

“I have been called that, yes,” she says, looking down at the pair of them. How could a boy, someone so young, lose his soul? The only soul-less she’s seen were centuries old. These boys look to be about Kagami’s age. She’s about to ask for an explanation when the boy pleads, “You have to save Yahiko! Please.”

It isn't the desperation of the boy's words that has Orochimaru by their side to examine the unconscious boy. Something _terrible_ must have happened, and as always, curiosity draws Orochimaru in. The boy is breathing slowly, pulse sluggish, skin cold. “Tell me what happened to him,” he says. There’s a residue of strong magic just beneath his skin, but he can’t tell what it does, only that it was powerful when it lasted.

“I don’t _know._ We found something strange in a cave and then Yahiko was screaming and glowing and floating. He collapsed when Konan and I got him down. We took him to the Toad Sage but he said it was beyond his power us and sent us here.” The boy is only a moment from tears, but Orochimaru ignores that. He traces a diagnostic spell in the air above the child and then hisses when it sparks and stings his hand before he can even finish.

“Orochimaru, that will not be necessary,” says Mito. “The boy has lost his soul.”

Incredible, souls were so hard to remove from a mortal shell. 

“A soul eater?” asks Sakumo, and Orochimaru looks up to see him frowning from beside Mito.

“No,” says Mito, eyes clouded as she looks sightlessly into the distance. “No, his soul has been scattered. I do not know how… but unless the pieces are retrieved, he will die.”

“What do I do?” asks the red-head. He hasn’t actually given in to the tears, though they’re heavy in his eyes. “I’ll do _anything_ in return, just save him.”

“Let me guess, that wish is too expensive?” asks Sakumo quietly. Orochimaru doesn’t spare him a glance though, because Mito is not paying attention to them any longer, she looks no different but the hair on Orochimaru’s arms stands on end as he feels the slightest hint of something terrible, something _timeless_ and unimaginably powerful from her.

To his surprise, she answers Sakumo’s query, though her voice is deep, consequent, when she says “Alone, Nagato cannot afford his wish. But if you are willing, if all three of you are willing, I can grant you a way to travel between the different dimensions.”

“And how would that help?” asks the child.

“Your friend’s soul is no longer in your world. That is why your Sage sent you to me. You’ll need to be able to travel through the different worlds to find the pieces, and restore him.”

“And us?”

She looks down at Orochimaru, who regrets that he’s still on his knees because it makes him feel oddly vulnerable. “You wanted a way out,” she says. “And Sakumo wanted a way back. All I can offer you is a way between the worlds. Where exactly this will take you…even I do not know. You may reach the worlds that you require, or you may not.”

“You would ask us to wander through the worlds and times, to seek out the pieces of this boy’s soul? Do you know the odds of actually finding something lost in space-time?” he asks, rising to his feet so he can look her in the eye. “Just slitting his throat- both of theirs, even, would be kinder.”

“It is true that you will have no control over your destinations, Orochimaru, just the choice to leave one world for the next. But the fabric of reality is held together by old magic. The Deep Magic. You will only go where you must.”

It sounds bizarre, but clearly Mito is in earnest. “And more importantly, what choice do you have?” she asks. “I can return you to your home-world as recompense for saving Sakumo if you’re so against trying your luck.”

It’s cruel of her to mock this way, but he doesn’t drop her gaze. “Um, ma’am,” says the child. “What is the price?”

He watches the sadness in her eyes. “You value your bond of friendship and love with Yahiko and another who is back in your home world the most, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he says softly, eyes wide.

“Yahiko’s memories of you, and your memories of her.”

“Of Konan,” he says quietly. “Is there nothing else?” he asks, and now he is crying, quiet tears slipping down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says fiercely, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m okay with paying that. For Yahiko’s life, anything. That’s what we both decided. That’s why she’s still…It’s okay. They’ll both remember each other. I accept.”

She turns to Sakumo, “And you. Are you willing to join them?”

“The alternative being stranded on this world?” he asks, smiling wryly.

“It’s not so bad. You would eventually adapt,” she says. Orochimaru doesn’t understand why she’s so much kinder to Sakumo than the others. He doesn’t even understand how the man got here. Sakumo’s piercing grey eyes look down at the unconscious Yahiko.

“If they can’t afford it without my help, I could never forgive myself for abandoning them. What do I need to give you?”

“Your tanto will cover the healing, and most of the time travel. For the rest, your ring.”

He can see the reluctance as the man takes off the ring. Probably a wedding band. He hands it over to Mito, who slips it into her pocket.

“And me,” he says. He’s wary as she gazes at him. Orochimaru has no one left that he loves enough for that to be his _most_ _valuable_ possession. He’s afraid she’s going to ask for his magic.

She holds out a hand, “Your contract with the Snake clan.”

That’s not. Somehow he hadn’t expected _that_ , can feel the twist in his chest at the idea of being separated from his snakes. Many of them are older than he is. Some even older than his grandparents. Family, though he hadn’t realized it until this moment. He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out the weathered family scroll.

He lets his fingers linger on the fine paper for a moment, then holds it out to the Witch. “I hope you’re satisfied,” he says, and if it sounds cold it’s only because he doesn’t want to sound _hurt._ Orochimaru was supposed to be above such common things.

“Yes,” she says, choosing to ignore the venom. “This covers it. Kurama!” A tiny furry creature, long and thin floats down from one of the highest shelves. “Are these the ones?” it asks, peering at all four of them closely before curling around Nagato’s wrist.

“Yes, these are the travelers,” she says.

“What is this,” asks Nagato.

“A pipe fox,” says Orochimaru, who had recognized the tiny creature’s snout and pointed ears. “It’s a fox spirit.”

“Kurama will take you wherever you need to go,” says Mito firmly. The fox winds it’s way up Nagato’s arm and into his hair, coming back out with something violet and glowing, like a little star or the brightest jewel in the light of the sun. The fox deposits it in Mito’s hand and returns to hide around Nagato’s neck.

“Is that… my memory?”

“Yes, it is. And with that, the four of you may depart.”

“To anywhere but here?” He wishes there was a better option than this. _Any_ option. “What is this deep magic that will be directing us?” he asks.

Mito smiles then, and oddly it seems the question has made her genuinely pleased. She says, “The threads of _Fate_ , Orochimaru. You _will_ believe.” She sounds absolutely certain.

The last thing he sees before an orange glow eats up the room around them is very old and warm brown eyes, reflecting the flames around them. 

The moment Kurama takes the four travelers away, Mito sits down heavily. It’s done. She can hardly believe it, all these years of waiting and praying and hoping, and the stars had aligned to provide them with this chance. Just, just the one, and she’d done all that she could.

The fate of her world is in the hands of four strangers, and she had had to… cheat, a little, to get Sakumo here instead of letting him die on a battlefield. She’ll have to pay for that one herself, though she’d let Orochimaru pay a portion of it. Kurama, the white one, comes down to curl up beside her. Kurama isn’t nearly as fond of her as he is of Kagami, but he looks up at her with shining black eyes.

She reaches out to scratch behind the tiny white ears and waits for dawn to bring her her shop assistant. The one bit of family she has been allowed to keep to herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, and HAPPY NARUTO MAGIC WEEK!


End file.
